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*
This version of his personality was strange. Not unpleasant, but definitely different. Nigel knew they were his own thoughts ru
There was also the problem of ex-sight perception. Without a shell (which this artificial brain could generate perfectly), anyone on Bienvenido would know his thoughts were different, wrong. Best case scenario they’d think him a psychopath, unfeeling and cold, disco
He was confident he could pass for human in the city. Kysandra had certainly never realized the ANAdroids were all Nigel-copy personalities. A subtle variation in the emotional responses of each one was easy enough, making them appear distinct and different. But she was young and naive. Living in Varlan would be the real test.
As Nigel and Kysandra said goodnight and retired to their separate rooms upstairs (Kysandra claimed the huge bed in the master bedroom, of course), he walked into the Rasheeda’s lounge bar. At this time of the evening, coming up on midnight, the room was quite full, with most of the booths occupied. He sat at the bar, choosing the middle one of three empty stools.
‘Dirantio,’ he told the barman. An almond-flavoured spirit his real self enjoyed the taste of. Taste made no difference to him, and the ANAdroid body would never metabolize the alcohol, but he should sound as if he knew what he liked.
‘Ice with that, sir?’ the barman asked.
‘Yes, please.’
There was the distinctive swish sound of silk as she sat on the stool next to him. He turned to look at her. Fresh mascara had been added. He wondered if she’d been crying, slapped about by her pimp back in the booth for her earlier failure.
‘Now, where’s that barman gone?’ she asked, not quite to herself.
‘Getting me some ice. He’ll be back in a moment.’
‘Oh, good. I like my drink chilled.’
‘Really? What do you like to drink?’
‘Me? Oh, white wine, mostly. Sometimes a Fi
‘I would love to buy you one of those.’
She did the slow appraising blink. ‘Can you afford one? You seem rather young.’
‘I’ve just arrived in the city today. It’s kind of a tradition for the men in our family. We spend a couple of years at the university partying and making contacts and maybe even going to a lecture or two before we get dragged back home to manage the estates like every other boring ancestor since the landing.’
‘Oh, really? Where is home?’
‘Kassell. Ever been?’
‘No.’
‘Well, maybe one day. I’d be happy to show you round.’
‘If that offer is still open, I think I’ll risk a Fi
‘Glad I caught you in the right mood, er . . . ’
‘Bethaneve.’
‘Hello, Bethaneve. I’m Coulan.’
4
From Varlan, they took the express to Portly
Portly
The regional capital extended over across dozens of estuary mud islands. Its buildings were all wooden, which came as quite a change for Kysandra after all the stone and brick towns the express had just travelled through. Wood imposed natural limits on the height of the buildings, so instead of going up, the town sprawled outwards, colonizing the marshy ground. There were bridges between the islands, but there was no logic to their positions, and they were all narrow – for pedestrians, not carts. Sometimes you’d have to go round three or four islands before reaching the one neighbouring the one you started at. All real travel in Portly
Nigel booked them into the Baylee Hotel, a big three-storey structure close to the east bank docks, where the town’s largest warehouses stood at the end of long wharfs. Fast sailing clippers and steam-powered sea barges were berthed along them, with teams of mod-dwarfs and stevedores loading and unloading cargoes all day long.
It took two days to gather supplies then hire a boat to take them upstream. But at daybreak on the third morning Nigel, Kysandra, Fergus, Madeline and Russell walked along the rickety bridges to Kate’s Lagoon at the south end of the city. Nigel had hired the Gothora, a sturdy steam-powered cargo boat, with a hull built out of anbor planks, one of the hardest woods on Bienvenido. A tiny crew cabin at the rear had berths for Captain Migray and his three crew: Sancal, Jymoar and the engineer Avinus. They certainly couldn’t fit Nigel and the rest in with them, so they’d rigged the first of Gothora’s two holds with a simple bamboo frame covered in canvas, allowing the passengers to spend the trip under cover, along with their trunks and supplies. The other hold was rigged with a simple open-sided awning, and used as a stable for the five terrestrial horses which they would ride across the desert, and the three mod-horses that would go with them, carrying their provisions.
Portly
The riverbanks for the first fifteen kilometres up from the mouth were still wild despite the heavy cultivation a few kilometres inland. Gothora chugged past a continuous wall of marshes and jugobush swamps, one boat in a long procession of cargo vessels setting off upstream. Five hundred metres to starboard, vessels laden with freshly picked crops were racing past, catching the current downstream to dock in Portly